


Snapshots

by Trojie



Category: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011), Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Backstory, Canonical Character Death, M/M, Non-Chronological
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-21
Updated: 2012-09-21
Packaged: 2017-11-14 17:48:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/517904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trojie/pseuds/Trojie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The moments of Bill Haydon's life are jumbled, out of context, and he's tried hard to forget them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Snapshots

'Say cheese, boys,' says Connie Sachs, and Jim Prideaux's arm loops around Bill Haydon, and pulls him close. 

It's a moment in time that should have been lost. Bill has had a lot of moments in his life that were sweet while they lasted, dangerous once they were done, and he's done everything he can to let them go. You can't afford a memory when you have stories to remember.

***

'Are you going to the Christmas party tonight?' Bill asks casually, tying his tie. The print of Jim's mouth gets sealed up under the tight silk.

'It should be fun,' says Jim, but he's wistful. He knows he'll be going alone. His cufflinks get dropped onto the twisted bedspread - he turns away to button his shirt. The set of his shoulders is stiff under the cotton, and Bill itches to run his palm over the crease of them and smooth the hurt away. 

He picks up Jim's belt and passes it to him. 'I'll see you there, then?'

When Jim turns back, he's smiling, and Bill's heart hurts. They've always understood each other. Perhaps too much, too well. 

***

The only photograph of himself that Bill Haydon likes, he doesn't have a copy of. There seemed to be no harm in it at the time - Bill had Jim's arm slung over his shoulder, and they were smiling, and all it was was a moment in time. One moment, when Bill was happy, and wasn't thinking.

'Say cheese, boys,' Connie said, and Jim grabbed him close and Bill hung on. 

That morning, Bill had grabbed Jim close, and Jim had hung on, gasping, with Bill's hand cradling the sharp curve of his jaw, and Bill had kissed him. He'd tasted so sweet, like gunmetal and ink and green greatcoat dye in the rain. 

These things are liabilities.

***

'This is madness,' says Jim, with a laugh and a purring tone, dragging his hand through Bill's hair, dragging his thigh, sweat-wet and naked, up along Bill's. The grain of their skin catches, holds. 

'All the best things in life are,' says Bill, and rolls him over. 

He's told a lot of people he loves them. He won't do that to Jim. Instead, he cares for him and says nothing and gives him what he wants when they're alone together, the touches he craves and will never, ever ask for.

There is a soft, smooth place above the divot of Jim's hip, just where Bill's hand rests when he pushes in, and that soft smooth skin stretches out as Bill's spine curves and he puddles, mouth gaping and eyes lidded, into the cream of the sheets.

Bill kisses Jim where his hair curls around the back of his ear, the join of his throat, and doesn't say a word.

***

Bill threw away the photo. Because people started calling them the Inseparables, you see, and they can't afford that, not in this line of work. 

At least in the war, when things hurt they hurt, and when you smiled, it was because you had something to smile about. You kept mementoes because memories were armour.

But this is a dirty war they're fighting now, and keepsakes will kill you. So Bill threw away his photograph, and everything that went with it. Now Bill smiles because he has reasons that go beyond wanting to. Bill has forgotten what it's like to actually react to something on the spot. 

***

In their passing-out parade, Bill had to bite down the inappropriate flush of arousal, seeing Jim stand to attention, salute, present arms. It all blurs together now; training, service, training again, service again; overt and covert. The one stable point in it all, from Cambridge to the Circus and every point in between, was Jim. The taste of him. 

***

Karla showed Bill Smiley's lighter, when he was briefing him. Smiley's good, he said. But there's a way to get under his skin. _To George, from Ann. All my love._ And Bill thought, _the Inseparables._

Ann Smiley tasted of cigarettes and bitter compromise, and they were both just means to each other's ends, really. This is the one thing Jim never understood, and Bill had stopped trying to hint, and slowly forgot what it was like to be inside someone's body and their heart at the same time.

You go numb, working for the Circus. Bill smirks and charms, drinks and fucks, lies and cheats and steals his way through every moment of his life, and none of it gets through to the centre of him. Not any more.

***

'You've changed,' says Jim in Hungarian, looking out the window onto the grey carpark below. There's the print of a gun showing through his shirt, at the small of his back where Bill would have put his hand without thinking five years ago, where he would have put it after looking around for observers two years ago, where he had it only four hours ago in the relative privacy of the mens' room on the fourth floor.

'Haven't we all?' Bill asks, and keeps his hands to himself.

'You never give a straight answer any more, for a start.'

***

'Jim Prideaux's been shot,' says Ann Smiley, putting the phone down. The click of plastic is no crack of powder, but it splinters what's left of Bill's heart all the same.


End file.
